Automation of the different phases in textile manufacturing is in great demand, particularly for the timely manipulation and transfer phases. From a manufacturer's viewpoint, automation is attractive in terms of labor and elimination of manual work. Automation also eliminates repetition which may make the manual tasks tedious.
Accordingly, in his patent application, Ser. No. 319,671, filed Nov. 9, 1981, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,428,315, John H. Keeton describes an automatic method and apparatus for assembling textile workpieces. More particularly, Mr. Keeton discloses an improved method for automatically making sleeves. In his application, Mr. Keeton describes a transfer apparatus for moving a textile workpiece from one conveyor to another. This is one of the key components in the patented apparatus to proper article manufacture. More particularly, the ability of the apparatus to correctly position the article on the second conveyor is very important. A continual problem has been the subsequent deposit of the workpiece on the second conveyor in a manner assuring the proper orientation of each half of the folded workpiece relative to each other and to a predetermined path.